William's blog

Google Docs Cloud Music

2011-05-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

Given the stupid, backwards and enormously frustrating licensing policies for online music outside the US, I felt it time to update my Favourite Recordings Extension. Google Docs gives you 1gb free storage - so you can use that to store your music in!

A couple of things I addressed from the last version was the large file handling is now fixed (still supports only up to 256kbps bitrate I think) and added a link to the folder it makes.

Apps and Doctor Who

2011-05-08T03:20:00.000-07:00

This Saturday I ventured to the Mitchell room in the State Library to another webdirections hackday where developers and designers build applications using public government datasets. The day was pretty intense - a good seven hours of solid programming - but my team came up with a neat little app (which I won't share because the code quality isn't all that beautiful).

There's a larger similar competition on at the moment (with some good prizes).

Today I slept in and watched more of the new Doctor Who (from iTunes). Great acting, quirky storylines, and Karen Gillan is hot.

Buns

2011-04-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

After a productive singing lesson I felt like my favourite pork bun place - Chef's Gallery which happened to be near my teacher's studio. I went there and ordered D5 (steamed pork buns), SN1 (chicken noodle soup and pork ribs) and a Tsing Tao. It was delicious - ribs flavoursome and the noodles a bland counterpart. Interestingly the first time I had the pork buns I didn't like them as I was expecting Yum Cha style sweet pork buns - these are more savoury and are great with soy sauce.
I went to see Thor afterwards and enjoyed it very much.

Rachmaninov Vocalise

2011-04-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

I remember hearing the end of this piece at the end of a Rachmaninov documentary and it bugged me that I couldn't find out what it was. The mystery of it was part of the appeal, but since I have found a fantastic recording:

Good ebb and flow and dynamic contrasts and I particularly love from 5:02.

Putting data into Google Fusion Tables

2011-04-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

I've been putting a few Australian Government datasets up into Google Fusion Tables as a means of making the data useful for developers by providing a queryable service.

Some datasets need a bit of a massage to make useful, the most common of which is sorting out Latitude and Longitude for the sets with geolocational data. I go about this by opening the CSV or XLS in Google Docs and then making a new column for the formula that will geocode.

For example, for the Cooking Classes in Victoria I imported the CSV into a google docs spreadsheet and ran this formula (credit) in an adjacent column to get the LatLong:

=ImportData(CONCATENATE("http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?output=csv&q=",B2,",",C2,",",D2,",",E2))

Which looks like this:

If you copy that formula down the column it will match up automatically (B2 becomes B3 etc). Google goes away and returns you your LatLong in new separate columns. The next bit is a matter of taste, but I prefer to combine my LatLong into one column. That's just a simple:

=CONCATENATE(K2,",",L2)

Which will give you a comma-separated LatLong.

Download that file as a CSV and head over to Google Fusion Tables where you select New Table -> Import Table. Upload the CSV.

It will look something like this:

Click Next and fill in whatever metadata you feel necessary. I usually grab the data from the page I downloaded the CSV file from.

You'll now see some of your table:

Notice the Yellow highlighted column? That's where Google has thought it's found a location that it can geocode. Ignore it for now and click on the arrow on the top right to show the rest of the columns.

You'll see this:

The only column we're interested in is the LatLong, so we can go and modify the columns by going Edit -> Modify Columns in the toolbar.

This will appear:

Here you can change, reorder and remove columns. There are some types and formats that Google can display your data as - such as Location or Image, Date etc and this is useful when you're tying in with visualisations. It gives it a best shot when you import, but it's not always what you want.

Notice how the State column has Location as its column type? I don't find that particularly useful because we have a more accurate location further down - the LatLong. Change that to Text to make things simpler and scroll down.

There are some columns that we don't need there - "Text, Number, Number, Number" as these were simply placeholders we used when doing the geocoding for the LatLong column in the spreadsheet. Go ahead and remove those by clicking on the column and then clicking the X. It should look like this afterwards:

Google has rightly interpreted the LatLong as a Location so we don't need to alter that column.

Save that and then click Visualise -> Map on the toolbar.

You have various customisation options above the map for changing the markers and contents of the info window that pops up when you click on a marker. There's also a link to copy and paste a snippet of code that you can use on your website.

Don't forget to share your data. You can do this by clicking Share on the top right and changing the Visibility options to Public.

And that's it.

The better the data, the better the visualisations are, and the more useful the information is for a consumer and developer.

New story - Filling

2011-04-09T03:13:00.000-07:00

Written in a similar style to my last. Filling.

Gloves

2011-04-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

Tonight after a good singing lesson I decided to go to my favourite wine bar Bambini for a glass of red before heading home.

I was intercepted by David Jones being open, and that meant there was a chance my favourite phad thai place was open. The phad thai was, of course, very nice but one thing irked me: I saw the chef pick up a fallen order paper off the floor with his gloved hand and then continue cooking. This is not the first time I've seen this sort of thing happen - I've seen it with people handling money, too and it defeats the purpose of wearing them.

I finished there and went on to Bambini, which was packed. Nonplussed I caught the bus back to Coogee whereupon I went to the late-night cafe that serve specialty beers.

My heart was set on a red, and so I ordered an All Saints 2008 Sangiovese Cabernet from Rutherglen, Victoria. It was exactly the right age and I found I could sip and drink it with equal pleasure. To heighten the experience I opted for a chocolate board which came with a chocolate brownie, whisky and praline panna cotta, and chocolate truffles.

The presentation was let down by the smarties surrounding the cocoa-coated truffles, and I half expected the brownie to be cold. I needn't have worried, as the brownie was warm and sumptuous with a crispy top and moist inner. I left the panna cotta. The truffles were an awkward affair as the cocoa was very jarring and the actual truffle was very rich; I guess it was a journey. This all washed down well with the wine.

Nandos

2011-04-05T06:09:00.000-07:00

I went to Nandos for dinner tonight. The place was packed full of ravenous carnivores and probably a few awkward vegetarians. Ordering my standard half-chicken this time with fries, I chose medium hotness for lack of judgemental company and took a still-warm seat to wait for my meal.
Not long after - the service is pretty good - my meal arrived. I considered my knife and fork, but primal instinct won and I was soon happily devouring the tangy white flesh with my hands.

About halfway through I got a tap on my shoulder. A man was beside me looking apologetic. He started to speak and so I wiped the back of my hand over my orange flecked lips and heard what he had to say.

"Hey, uh," he began in an american accent.
"Yes?"
"Uh, I don't mind hearing you suck on your uh chicken bones, and like rocking back and forward on your seat and all."
He thought for a moment.
"And growling at people when they come near," he continued, "but man, do you have to roar like a lion each time you finish a piece? It's really putting me off my meal."

New story - Bread

2011-04-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Oscar Wilde fairy tales and it put me in that style.

~~Bread~~

Update - have compiled these stories into a Kindle book on Amazon

Beethoven, Barber and another composer

2011-04-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight I went to the Beethoven 7 and Barber's Adagio at the Sydney Opera House. This was the first time I'd listened to the Beethoven 7 all in one go - I knew only the second movement. This turned out to be not a problem as the first movement has little to get into, and the third is basically a series of codas with no real theme.

It was all played well, although for some reason I felt the woodwind and brass arrangement jarring from an audio sense and it gave me a slight headache. They were clustered together in a (successful) attempt to make it sound over the vast array of strings and although they were well played - I felt comfortable listening to the flute and oboe and trusted they wouldn't go flat - something about the balance or frequencies didn't work - it could have been the auditorium with those discs above the orchestra.

The second movement, however, was sublime. Right from the beginning you could feel like the conductor was crafting the piece, focusing on melding the tune and developing it. Throughout the whole concert I felt Edo de Waart not only knew and was intimate with the music, but that the orchestra shared his intentions (and indeed the intentions of the composer).

Barber's Adagio, a piece I have listened to often, was the perfect mix of passion and compassion. A moving and musical piece played as such.

Then came the expected throw-in modern piece by modern composer Adams. I try to keep an open mind about modern orchestral works in the face of disappointment, and so I listened for a few bars before resigning myself to have to sit through it.

The choir's treatment in the piece was that of an effect, not a chorus. The words were mushed and vaguely english despite the efforts of the choir to enunciate. You cannot sing musically when you are focusing on notes and rhythm.

The dynamics were contrived and ungrounded. Take Verdi's Dies Irae, remove the melody and fury, and that's what it sounded like at times.

Overall I was impressed by the conductor, the orchestra and the works of the masters.

Add to Google Bookmarks Extension

2011-01-22T23:52:00.000-08:00

Just released a new extension that allows you to add bookmarks to your Google Bookmarks lists.

There's no official API for Google Bookmarks but I was able to get it working with some funky ajax.

imgur update

2011-01-06T14:44:00.000-08:00

I just released a small update to my imgur extension. Noticeable changes are the switch from jpeg to png for screen capture, full page screen capture and capturing an area of a page.

Trade Watcher 0.1

2011-01-03T03:19:00.000-08:00

I've released a new Chrome extension: Trade Watcher.

It uses the (poorly documented) Trade Me API.

This extension had a fairly drawn out development for what it is, including one misadventure using the Google Closure Library and Compiler.

One thing I have set up with this particular version is a bash script that compresses everything using the YUI Compressor, and this works nicely.

For those interested, it uses a python proxy hosted on Google App Engine to talk to the API (getting around some limitations) and does some code injection into the Trade Me authorisation success page to help automate the experience.

New story - Tissue

2010-12-28T22:22:00.000-08:00

I've been on holiday for a while and just wrote a new story - ~~Tissue~~. It was fun to write.

Update - have compiled these stories into a Kindle book on Amazon

New Chinese place

2010-11-06T03:31:00.000-07:00

I tried out a new Chinese place today in Coogee. It's pretty new and I saw the first mistake before I walked in: no menu out front.

All the other restaurants on the street had their menus out the front of theirs for passers-by, and this one had nothing. The front-of-house was there hovering about looking friendly (and good-looking) and so I asked her for a menu. She had one ready and I read it while she stood there. Some people could find that disconcerting.

Deciding to eat there after sighting BBQ pork, I took a comfortable seat by the wall. It was nicely decorated - light tiles on the floor and well-spaced chairs and tables. I ordered quickly - some spring rolls, BBQ pork and noodle soup, and some tea.

The tea was, agricultural, and the spring rolls were frozen in the middle. I returned the spring rolls and they gave me new ones with apologies. I must have been one of their first customer's so I figured it may have been a teething issue. The BBQ pork was delicious and the hot spring rolls were nice too with chilli sauce.

I was charged half-price for the spring rolls - a good touch. And made non-awkward small talk, which was good also.

External link and file tracking for Google Analytics

2010-10-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

Assuming you have Google Analytics tracking on your page (the new one), you can put this script on your page and it will automatically track outgoing links and files (otherwise they aren't tracked).

Head over to williamparry.com and look in the source code for "customTracking".

This method is called when the page is loaded and goes through all the links on that page and will check each link to see if it's externally facing, a file or internal. You can define what file types you want tracked with the exts array.

If it's not internal, it will see if an onclick event is attached to the link, and then put that into another property to be called later.

When you click on the link, it will call the original onclick event (if it had one), and then push that through to Google Analytics. It has a timeout of 100 milliseconds because GA needs that to do the tracking.

You can customise the categories in the shorthand conditionals defining the cat variable.

Note: You will need the Array.indexOf script above the method too (for IE).

To check your tracking, open up Google Analytics and go to Content then Event Tracking.

Raphael JS

2010-10-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

I've been playing a bit with javascript graphics tech raphael js and it's pretty easy to use. If you go to my site www.williamparry.com, you'll notice that the externally-facing URLs have a wikipedia-style icon next to them. The icon is made using rapahel at run time and can be resized, recoloured and repositioned by adjusting a few variables at the top.

If you're interested in how it all works, just take a look at the source code.

Google Text-To-Speech service with Javascript HTML 5

2010-09-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

Recently I stumbled upon the Google Text-To-Speech service, which is basically a URL that you give a query string of the text you want made into audio.

I wrote a small javascript utility that makes an HTML 5 Audio object and sets the source to being the result of the query to the tts service. I put in a bit of queuing for good measure.

Ideally flash websites can use this script and hook up ExternalInterface to talk to it (it'll be easy...) in order to aid screen readers.

Update - Does not work in Firefox as the media type sent back is unsupported.

Update 2 - Looks like it just works in Chrome! I had hopes for IE 9 beta, but no luck.

Update 3 - Link removed as it no longer works in Chrome.

Update 4 - No longer works at all

Crank that up

2010-07-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

I listen to my music loud. Really loud. This is partly because classical music sound normalisation is awful, but also it really gets me in the mood of the piece. Whether I'm singing along to some opera or playing the air drums to a rock song, or conducting something passionate, the volume is invariably loud.

Of course pieces like the Miserere by Allegri is played softly, but take Verdi Dies Irae - how could you play that soft? You should feel that in your bones! Rachmaninov piano concerto 2 1st movement after the intro of the piano you simply must have the sound up to hear the gorgeous cellos march along with their motif.

Unexpected Thai

2010-07-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

Today I skipped breakfast, but did have a coffee on the way to work. The coffee shop on King Street on the way to work is rather superb because it looks like the people who make the coffee take care doing it. You know how they bounce the jug on the bench a few times?

When I arrived at work I had to hurry to finish a document to show a client at 10. Come 10 I arrive at the meeting and am given another coffee. Two coffees down on an empty stomach and I'm in the clouds. The meeting went fine and we went to the Slipp Inn across the road for lunch.

I already knew their wedges were delicious - crispy exterior, warm interior and full of flavour. But I didn't know that they served good Thai food. I had Hokkein Duck Noodles washed down with a couple of lime & sodas. Service was quick, company interesting and I didn't have to pay, so sweet.

New story - Robe

2010-07-17T04:55:00.000-07:00

New story "~~Robe~~".

This story took a fair while to write - it suffered initially from what I quote as "Ideas are often crippled by ambition". It actually took me until the end of my first draft to clarify what I wanted to show in the story, and then it was a battle to try and keep it from being too complicated.

As usual I would love to have feedback on it.

My next story will likely be a different style, having explored the Grimm style with a few stories now.

Update - have compiled these stories into a Kindle book on Amazon

New story - Signatures

2010-07-04T04:06:00.000-07:00

~~This story~~ is another one of my Grimm Brother's style stories I've written. It's short and fairly blunt.

Update - have compiled these stories into a Kindle book on Amazon

Fish market

2010-07-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

Today I went with a group from work to the Sydney fish markets. I've never been a big seafood person as growing up we didn't have it much and the closest thing I got was a fish pie and tuna in salads.

My friend Andy introduced me to as many seafood things as he could while I was in New Zealand, and won me over a few times with some superb cooking. However, it never really stuck with me. There are too many funny bits, such as oysters and the hairy rubbery stuff.

So today we set out on a glorious Sydney morning on the light rail and ended up at the markets. We ordered three platters and took a spot by water. On the way I saw people sucking bits out of fish heads, and crab legs and it was an entirely different world for me. I'm used to roast dinners and things being prepared, not gnawing on things. It's just a different way of eating, and one I approve of, because you get the most out of the meal.

On the platter were various things, small fish, baby octopus, calamari rings, fish, chips, crab, prawns, and probably some other things. I tried the octopus and it didn't taste like much, but was pretty chewy. Prawns were OK too.

I would like to get into seafood, as it's a whole culinary world I'm not experiencing. I'm a little more receptive to the idea of seafood after today, but I won't be eating fish heads in the near future.

Dog show

2010-05-18T02:36:00.001-07:00

My flatmate invited me last Sunday to what was described to me as a dog walk with greyhounds. On a champion breakfast of anti-biotics I hopped in the car with my flatmate and (picking up her friend on the way) drove out to Olympic park, Homebush where we came to a dog show. My heart sank - I'm not a fan of carnivals and fairs, let alone ones about dogs. Nevertheless I was looking forward to some good exercise and some time walking a dog - something I hadn't done for a while.

We met up with friends and I was given a speckled greyhound that was lean and friendly. After milling about for a while we saw the announcer walk onto the stage near the start of the walk and say a few words. Then the collective mass of people with dogs surged forward.

I felt, as I was restraining my dog from its eagerness to explore everywhere and everything, that this was more of a human event than a dog one. Sure there were dog showers, various dog garments and dog treats but there were also shows, socialising with other owners and of course this walk, for humans. I say this because I can't imagine the dog having very much fun being choked back on its lead from sniffing and running around during a four kilometre walk jam packed with humans and their respective canines.

The walk wasn't very picturesque and was livened only by the occasional cry for help as a dog broke loose through the ranks and when my flatmate and I race-walked our dogs.

At the end, as I stood sweltering in the Australian sun watching the dogs drink and stand in their water buckets, I decided that dogs should be dogs and that humans should be obsessed about something else.

Too much swearing

2010-05-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

I don't have a problem with swearing - we all do it. However, in the movie Hot Tub Time Machine I actually noticed the unimaginative repetitive swearing in almost every sentence. It could be the poor plot and contrived attempts to milk story out of characters made with little foundation that made me particularly aware of this, but according to wikipedia my observation has a little credibility: "fuck" was used every 2.12 minutes.

Surely script writers can come up with something more imaginative than relying on torrents of expletives for character expression. I fondly remember Monkey Island to this effect and this gem courtesy of Shakespeare.

Korean BBQ

2010-04-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

Last night after a thrilling game of Settlers of Catan I went to a Korean BBQ in search of some chicken. I found a place nearby on Goulburn Street and went inside. It looked busy and when the front-of-house greeted me he indicated that it would be 5 minutes and for me to take a seat.

I was about to object and leave - there are plenty of restaurants in Chinatown, but he seemed fairly genial and so I sat down. Barely 2 minutes passed when a courteous waiter led me to a table upstairs. I was placed in a table for four but didn't feel bad - I usually eat alone and don't even notice if there were any quizzical looks around me.

The menu looked interesting, lots of raw meat you could cook on the BBQ on the table. I was after my chicken, however. Soon after the waiter came with 5 small dishes. I asked what they were and he replied that they were small side dishes so that I could eat while I waited. I asked what they were again and he explained each of the plates: Radishes covered in hot sauce, vegetables in hot sauce, mung beans, chestnut jellies and potatoes.

Feeling adventurous I tried each one of them and only finished the potato dish; I like potatoes.

Now settled and happy with the service and complimentary dishes I took stock of my surroundings. It was a pleasant restaurant full of people: a large loud group on my left having a BBQ and infront of me was what looked like a family outing. Immediately infront of me was a stack of boxes labelled "Butane".

My meal of some flavoured fried chicken arrived and it was served with rice. It was delicious, made more so by my hunger - which is the best sauce. The portion looked a bit small but with rice I felt it was just right.

The whole meal experience was easy and cheap and I may go back there with more people for the proper BBQ experience.

openID recognition

2010-04-30T03:36:00.000-07:00

Who's heard of openID? Not many of you I bet. What about Gmail, Yahoo or Twitter? You'll notice dotted around the Internet (especially around comments sections) that you can login to comment using your openID. The problem with this is "login using your openID account" is meaningless if you don't know what openID is. Google, Yahoo and many more websites are openID providers, meaning you can login to comment using your Gmail account, for example.

What the website should say is "Login using Google, Twitter or Yahoo" and set it up so that the user can log in using those websites.

http://stackoverflow.com/users/login is an example of doing this right.

Web form border colour

2010-04-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

There's a lot to be said about web form usability and one that is repeatedly ignored by graphic designers is colour contrast. I visited this site recently:

http://www.bandit.fm/redemption

Why the light grey border on the form fields? It makes the form difficult to use. And no, it doesn't look good either.

Westpac ATM usability

2010-04-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

I used a Westpac ATM today and aside from the machine being very slow, I saw a confusing message when it was processing my transaction.

Westpac has been following other banks (or leading, who cares) in the personal approach style. As such, on the processing loading screen of the ATM it had a picture and some text of a bank employee offering some service. Below their statement (and about the "processing your transaction" text) were two buttons that I could push:

"My details" and "No thanks"

This isn't good as the ATM process has been using the user as the primary subject and so when presented with a button that says "My details" the user may be confused as to whose details they are referring to. What it should have said is "(banking manager)'s details".
Also, "No thanks" needn't be there as it's implicit (the user can not do anything and the screen will go away when the processing is complete).

The latter point brings up another, more important issue - that this screen presents the user with an unknown deviation of the flow. What happens if you push the button? Does it cancel or postpone the transaction? When banking, the last thing you want is to have your transaction threatened.

2010-04-20T02:34:00.000-07:00

I walk down George street in a sullen mood and slip into a Vietnamese restaurant near my regular cyber cafe. I'm given a seat facing the street and also a menu. Most of the dishes there have parts of the animal I'm not familiar with and so I opt for a chicken and noodle soup.

Thus ordered I gaze out onto the street of Sydney, specifically chinatown. People of all shapes and sizes are strolling about on their various errands. With such vacant thoughts the time flies and the waiter pops up and presents me with a plate of mung beans, some liquid in a red cup and a lemon. He makes indecipherable noises gesturing at the beans - I think they are complimentary. I don't like mung beans. I ask him what the large jug behind me is for - he answers "Tea".

Leaving the mung beans I pour myself some tea and look back out over the street. There walks by a barefoot man holding two bottles of what looks like beer - he's happy. My waiter arrives not long after and puts a large soup bowl and plate of chicken beside me. It looks delicious.

Most of the noodley soups I've tried have been yuck, with the bits inside nice and tasty. This soup is yum but the noodles are unfortunately intermingled with corriander. I'm worried about the redness of the chicken, but eat it anyway and it too is a pleasure.

I couldn't finish it and it didn't cost too much.

Stingy Coffee

2010-04-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

This week at about 3pm when I was feeling the midday blues I felt a coffee would help pick me up. There's a new place up the road from my work and I went there to try it out. They were cleaning up but the guy said I could have a coffee and when he was done he said I had missed out on happy hour by 4 minutes (where I would have got a cheaper coffee).

This blows my mind. Here we have a fledgling coffee shop that is so tight-ass that it wont give a customer a discount because they were 4 minutes late. The best thing, which would have ensured my continued patronage, would have been "You're 4 minutes late, but... you're close enough" and given me the discount. It's all part of this crazy lack of service that I find all over the place.

Clash of the Titans in 3D

2010-04-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

This is a movie so bad that I spent most of it trying to get myself into a fetal position. So bad that at one point I thought it was a parody. The thought of leaving was counteracted by the $21(!) I paid to watch it on the sub-standard George Street cinema screen.

The main actors were cringeworthy with their contrived charisma and method acting, and the storyline had all the depth and consistency that a 5 year old could muster. Not even the CGI was any good and it had 3D to help it (not that it was used much in the movie). The supporting actors, at times funny, had to battle with poor character development, the main character's acting skill And monsters.

Luckily the rest of the audience found it as terrible and I joined in with them laughing and groaning at it. I struggled throughout this film as to whether I give it a 1 or a 0 out of 10. By the end I had settled on 0.

How to Train Your Dragon

2010-04-01T01:36:00.000-07:00

Jake and I watched How to Train Your Dragon at the iMax last week and I'm beginning to really like watching things there. It's a pretty big screen, the picture quality is good And (importantly) the 3D glasses they use work for me (unlike the ones I had for Avatar).

The movie was fun and didn't go too long. Any dragon that licks its eyeball is a winner in my books. The main dragon I was particularly fond of and the interactions between it and the main character were charming. Some scenes portrayed on the huge iMax screen and 3D made for a thrilling experience.

The only downside to the movie was the main character's voice was whiney. Other than that, while I doubt it'll be a classic, it was certainly good entertainment.

Vivace?

2010-03-21T01:43:00.000-07:00

I bought the Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8 "Christmas" by Arcangelo Corelli played by Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Karajan.

The first piece is Grave - Vivaci (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivace) which means there's a slow section then a lively second section.
I listen to the first section (Grave) and it's well-played if a little heavy and procession-like. I'm eager to get to the Vivace. When I get there I am surprised by the lack of change in tempo. This is supposed to be lively, not laggard and wallowing! (they had the Grave for all that).

I'm a bit pissed at this point (having shelled out $8.95) as I've heard many recordings of this piece and all of them have been unfailingly fast and great. I wonder if they thought it was "lively enough" as it was probably intended for a court audience in the day and anything too boisterous would be unseemly. However, by the same train of thought, it is titled "Christmas" and so the lively section should have a bit of gusto (and all the other recordings do it). Perhaps it's arrogance?
Skipping on to "III. Vivace" in the hopes they have figured out what Vivace means, I am treated to some doddering rubbish all beautifully toned but also dead and boring.

For a recording that is far better (and I bought because I couldn't bare to listen to any more of the self-gratifying arrogance-dripping boredom of the aforementioned album) look at track 35 of:

http://itunes.apple.com/nz/album/the-50-most-essential-pieces/id278864065

New book

2010-03-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

I bought a new book recently, called "Where Underpants Come From" by Joe Bennet. It's proving to be a great read about trade with China (Joe is tracing the source of a pair of underpants he bought from the warehouse). His writing style is both fun and engaging, and similar in my mind to Bill Bryson.

Corporate games

2010-03-20T00:51:00.000-07:00

I woke up early this morning, ready to deal to all the office workers at the NSW Corporate Games. It was to be a two hour trip to the stadium out at Thornleigh and I had prudently printed out an uneconomical amount of instructions on how to get there.
Dressed in my corporate T-Shirt and wearing my game ID, I triple-checked my bag and left the flat seeking a wholesome breakfast.
I found it at one of the many cafe's dotted around my area and ordered bacon & eggs. It didn't take long to arrive.
"Where're ya off to?" Asked the waitress nodding at my shirt and game card necklace.
"Corporate games," I replied. "To play table tennis."
"Oh, cool," She said, looking less interested. "My boyfriend plays rugby"
"Local team?" I asked.
"Yeah"
"Oh, cool" I said, looking a little disappointed.
She smiled a great fake smile and walked off.
The breakfast was delicious, actually, and I finished it well before the bus arrived.

I hailed the bus and got on. The driver looked around forty, but it was hard to tell as his face was covered with chaotic facial hair. It was as if the body had given up trying to grow it on his head and instead tried its luck with his face, with resounding success.
"Do you go to Thornleigh station?" I asked.
"Yeah," He said in a low gruff voice worn with cigarettes or coughing up beard balls "I'll let you know when we get there."
I thanked him and took a seat near to the front.

The trip took about an hour and half and all of it through idyllic Sydney suburbia.
"Thornleigh station," Announced the driver, pulling into a small bus terminal.
I got off and consulted my map, it was a half-hour's walk to the stadium. Hefting my bag onto my shoulder I set off.

Soon I was at the stadium and saw other gamers wandering in and around. They all looked alarmingly athletic. I had expected them to be sullen-faced bent-backed pasty office workers, not sprightly pro-active sportspeople. Putting this to the back of my mind, I put on my best game face and strode in and to reception.
The lady at reception was normal and she spoke pleasantly.
"Hi, do you have your game card?"
I flourished my necklace at her.
"Very good. William, is it?"
"Yes."
"Great, you're a bit early, but just head through that door over there," She pointed to a pair of doors nearby "And go to the desk at the center of the court."
"Cheers."
"Enjoy the games," She said with a smile.
I walked through the doors and my heart sank further. The delusion of playing with despondent office workers forced to do corporate activities dropped away and I was faced with rows of bright-eyed men and women concentrating on their fast and furious table tennis games.
Rallying myself, I strode up to the table at the center of the court where a few men were sitting pouring over clipboards
"Yes?" Said the man, looking up distractedly.
"I'm here for the table tennis." I said. "William Parry."
He looked down and flipped a few pages over on his clipboard until he found my name. Putting a big tick by it he looked up at me.
"You're a bit early" He said a tad reproachfully, and then he brightened "But that means we can fit you in with Pool C".
He called out three names that I can only shamefully remember as A, B and C (me being D). And three sharp-looking men materialised in front of us. I shook hands with all of them and they seemed friendly enough.
"You guys can play over at the far table." Said the administrator
"First to 11?" Asked A.
"Yes"
"5 serves each?" I asked, wondering if the service length had been altered from the 21-pointed game.
They all looked at me.
"No, 2" Said the administrator.

We all walked to the far table.
B was looking at me determinedly, probably wanting to use our games as a warm up. I chided myself for being so negative. I could play table tennis!
C must have caught the look because he suggested "William and Geoffrey play first?"
We both nodded and took our place at the table.

By the end of the game I had done a lot of self-discovery, mostly on how to prepare better for things. B's serve was fiendish - causing my return to go at whatever angle he chose and invariably off the table.
And so it was for the remainder of the round-robin; my pride and ego being crushed by each game. Although, by the final set I had started getting some of my rhythm back and even had one game on the go (which I eventually lost).
C commented on how my backhand had improved a lot since I started and that put a smile on my face, which I wore all the way back home.